History

This area is about all those popular things people believe happened, but didn't. Or at least didn't in the way they think it happened. Correcting the disinformation that is the foundation of many people's beliefs.

Topics

Allegory of the cave

This was created by Plato to help people understand that "perception is reality". The allegory can be paraphrased as:

Imagine people locked in place to only see shadows cast on the wall (and not the actors behind them speaking and doing a puppet show in front of the fire), and that was all they knew their entire life.

Then you freed them to see truth, and the light of the sun.

The fire's light would burn their eyes, the sunlight even more, and returning to the cave they'd be blind for a while (while the eye's adjusted back).

After that, they'd all agree to not only not leave, but stop anyone that tried such a journey for everything about it was strange and painful.

After that, you could remove the shackles, but from that point on, none would leave (or allow others to).

Many books got their theme from this thought experiment (think Fahrenheit 451, Room, The Matrix). It's the idea that the longer a human gets used to something, the more comfortable they become with that reality and the more resistant they are to change. Pretty much, Stockholm Syndrome is just a manifestation of this phenomenon. People prefer confirmation bias and the known to the truth and complexity of the real world.

Iraq War

This covers many of the fallacies and bad arguments about the Iraq War. Disagreeing over the cost/benefits of a war is fine, ignoring truths because they get in the way of your agenda is not.

Civil War and Slavery

As the Jewish Marxist Walter Benjamin said, "History is written by the victor", which is another way of saying, "don't believe what you've been told".

When I hear people talk about the civil war and slavery, it reminds me of a movie, "Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter", because I often feel that's as based on reality as their perceptions are (they were believing what they'd been told). A few facts that escape their version of the telling:

The first shots in the civil war were fired over taxes and tariffs (Morrill Tariff), not slavery

The Corwin Constitutional Amendment (passed by Congress) offered the South to keep slaves forever, the South declined

The South offered to give up slaves if the North let them go, the North declined

The 3/5th clause was more limiting slavery than condoning it

Lincoln was a racist, not an abolitionist

Lincoln violated the Constitution more than any other President

Lincoln fought for pride and conquest, the South for freedom and self government: slavery was a catalyst, not the cause

And so on.

History is rich and complex, not this shallow flat "good vs. bad" or the North was righteous and the South was evil bullshit. Since I care about the uncomfortable truths, more than the comforting fictions, I often discuss these things. Not to diminish what happened, or deny the points of either side, but by remembering the truth of what really happened (from both sides). Of course, since my family came to America, long after this, I have no dog in the fight, and can look at it more objectively than many. But if we care about learning from history, we first have to give up our comforting fictions (caricatures) and learn what really happened.

Corporate Personhood & Citizens United

Many on the left claim that Citizens United created/invented Corporate Personhood, and that this makes Corporations People, and this new power puts our political system "up for sale". They're frighteningly wrong on all counts, and most are highly resistant to Historical, Legal and Logical facts. But this article does a fly-over of this history of Corporate Personhood, Citizens United, and why I politically distrust anyone that decries the ruling.

Dropping the Bomb

The "defeated Japan” theory, and the idea that “the U.S. didn’t NEED to drop the bomb” is regularly regurgitated by folks like Oliver Stone (the alternative History professor) in articles repeated as News or History by leftist sources such as the L.A. Times. But those who know anything about the actual history of WWII, know better. This article sources a lot of the real history, instead of the fictitious one run by FakeNews outlets.

Electoral College vs Popular Vote

After every election that the democrats lose, a faction starts coming out in force and explaining why we should eliminate the electoral college Which is especially ironic if their selective amnesia didn't interfere with their memories of just weeks before the 2016 loss, they were excitedly talking about how the electoral college could help Hillary prevent President Trump from coming to power, even if he won the popular vote. After they lost, the tone flipped 180° without a picosecond of introspection, or the slightest bit of irony. If you want to understand the full force of that irony, remember Obama lost the popular vote to Hillary in the primary (but he had more delegates), and Hillary lost the popular vote to Bernie Sanders (but she had more delegates): so neither of them would have likely been President if they practiced what they preached. But when some people lose, they want to retroactive change the rules, and get mad when you call them bad sports for doing it. However, if you have any clue about civics, history and human nature, you have an inkling of why the electoral college was created, and why eliminating it, would probably destroy the nation.

Lies the Government told you by Judge Andrew Napolitano

Judge Napolitano offers a refresher (for political history buffs) of the 17th Amendment and some of the unintended consequences of progressivism: like the scope creep of the federal government once we removed the checks and balances that was the 17th.

Bill Gates

Is Bill Gates a genius? After all Microsoft was one of the world's great success stories. I don't think he's dumb - he was certainly smart and motivated enough to take advantages of opportunities that fell into his lap. And he was very industrious and competitive. But if you put 100 motivated people in situation, I bet 30 could have been wildly successful, and a few could have been more successful and less jerky. That to me is well below the bar of genius, but YMMV.

Barack Obama

A list of issues, articles and scandals that pertain to Barack Obama. Again, the point isn't to be fair here: it's to be honest. I don't care how people vote, or who they support. I do care about correcting revisionist history. This isn't meant as a balanced piece to show what good he's accomplished as a politicians or person (there was some, though it is a much shorter list), if you want fawning puff pieces, read/watch the water carriers in the left-wing media. This is meant to counter-balance those who claimed or tolerate his claims that the administration was scandal free. The full list of scandals for the Community Organizer in Chief sits around 800 , I'm just listing some of the lowlights.

Senator Joe McCarthy

The full title is like reading the back cover. Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His fight Against America's Enemies by M. Stanton Evans. But it's fascinating, well researched, vivisection of the myths and propaganda that altered what happened and why, in the public's mind. It turns out McCarthy's name should remain synonymous with libelous witch hunts, not because he was the perpetrator of them, but the victim of it.

Alt-right, Milo, Bannon and Breitbart

Alt-Right is popularized by the media, but most have no idea where the term came from or what it means, or that it started as a slur (like "tea-baggers" or "libtard"). Or that there's basically 4 different usages. (1) Non Paleo's - those that failed the establishment right (paleoconservative) litmus tests. (2) Trolls and Blasphemers - those who mock the SJW's/Progressives, by pretending to be what they're accused of (to parody the source that's not in on the joke). (3) The Establishment Alt-Right this is the Spencer faction and what most today think the alt-right is (but very few actually belong to) (4) And the Proxy Alt-Right - which is anyone that's not hostile to everyone else that's to the right Karl Marx. This article explains all that and more.

2nd Amendment was about the militia

There are a few late 20th century inventions in the war against civil liberties (and the 2nd), but few as virulent and wrongheaded as that the 2nd amendment was about "the militia" and the militia meant "National Guard" (something that wasn't invented until 1903). These assumptions fail at Logic, English, History, and Constitutional Law, and there were the founders words, Supreme Court rulings, and experts in language and history that all but unanimously disagree with them. Of course mere facts won't prevent the determined from demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect, but hopefully the evidence can deter a few of them from demonstrating their willful ignorance in the future.

2nd Amendment was for muskets

There’s a common argument (fallacy) that the Second Amendment didn't project changes in armament / technology, thus it couldn’t have been intended to apply to modern pistols and rifles (most of whose designs actually go back to the 1800’s or early 1900’s). This argument completely fails on the intent of the 2nd (which was about balancing power), but it even more strongly fails on understanding gun technology and history. At the founding of the country they had 8-shot revolvers, 9 shot "repeaters", 11-shot field artillery pieces, Jefferson even had a 22 shot repeating rifle. Not to mention "burst mode" automatics that fired up to 20 rounds with a single pull of the trigger. And during the remainder of their lives, not one of the founding fathers came forward to complain that technology was advancing beyond the intent of the 1st or 2nd Amendments.